Lost
by monkeybait
Summary: LEFT UNFINISHED Azula, Mei, and Tai Li are lost. Who is Tai Li's crush for real? Will Mei tell Azula that she likes Zuko? FIND OUT by reading this!
1. Tai Lee's Crush

**This story takes place after Azula, Mei, and Tai Li were defeated by Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph. And possibly Zuko and Uncle Iroh, whom I hope is alive. **

"I can't believe we got beaten by two kids and their big smelly ox," Mei said angrily.

"Yeah, but wasn't that guy kind of-"

"Give it a rest, Tai Li! That's what you've been saying for the past hour!" Mei yelled. She growled and folded her arms. " 'He's so cute'… 'He's so SPECIAL'… it's driving me **BANANAS**!"

"Yeah, but you've had a crush on Zuko since we were little kids!" Tai Li teased. "I bet you wish right now you could be fighting with Azula because Zuko's probably there!"

"WHO SAYS I'D LIKE TO BE THERE!"

"No need to be grouchy," Tai Li said, waggling her finger. "Besides, at least I don't keep my obvious crush a secret like SOME PEOPLE."

"… I wonder what Azula's up to," Mei asked nobody in particular.

"Maybe she's fighting Zuko!"

"Will you PLEASE shut up!" Mei yelled. She took out her arrows and pinned Tai Li to a tree by her clothes. "I could go find some hungry platypus-bear RIGHT NOW and then would you be sorry! Would you shut up then!"

Tai Li blinked.

"I THOUGHT SO!" Mei shouted, scaring off some birds.

"You should calm down, Mei… you're scaring our lizard… things…" Tai Li said. "What did Azula call them again? Because nobody's really sure of what their name is until somebody says it…"

Mei sighed. "Okay, I'm SORRY, Tai Li. Are you happy now?"

"Um… could you get me down?" Tai Li asked. Mei took away the arrows and Tai Li grinned.

"Yay! You don't hate me!" She hugged Mei tightly.

"Can't… breathe…" Mei managed to say.

"Oh. Sorry."

Mei and Tai Li looked around.

"Do you recognize anything…?" Mei asked, staring at the trees.

"Hmm. Well, I know on the way here there was… a dandelion field!" Tai Li said.

"I don't see any dandelions."

"I don't even see our lizard thingies anymore." Tai Li glanced around nervously. "Here, Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie! We love you!"

"I wouldn't answer to that if you paid me."

"At least I'm trying," Tai Li said. "Hmph. You're not FUN, Mei. I remember when we used to play games together, you would just sit there and feed the turtle ducks."

"Hey, I didn't throw rocks at the turtle ducks."

"Neither did I, meanie!" Tai Li argued. "That was Azula... come to think of it, Azula was always kind of mean… she pushed me over when I did that cartwheel thing."

"Yeah and she almost burned my head off…" Mei said.

"Thank goodness for Prince Charming!" Tai Li gleefully added. Then she sat down. "Let's wait for Azula. I bet she'll be here soon and then we won't be so lost anymore!"

- At Dusk -

"She's not coming," Tai Li mumbled, her eyes wide as she rocked herself back and forth. "What are we going to do, Mei? She's not coming… we're going to die… we're going to eat each other or worse, we'll be eaten by platypus bears… not like the TAME ones that were at the circus either…" She grinned. "I wish HE was here. He was such a good fighter. If he was here, I wouldn't be scared anymore."

"Are you talking about that guy again?" Mei growled, poking a fire they'd made with a stick.

"Uh-huh," Tai Li said, swooning over her imaginary image of her crush in her brain.

"Well, then obviously you forgot that you easily defeated him. He was no match for us, so stop saying how much of a fearless warrior he was."

Tai Li cocked her head to one side. "But I didn't defeat him, Mei."

"Yeah, you did. I saw you do it with my own two eyes," Mei replied. "I'm so hungry… anything to eat?"

"I could go looking for some food," Tai Li offered. "I could just close my eyes and pretend like he was here… What was his name anyway? Yip-yip?"

"Eh? No, that's what they said to get their stupid bison in the air-"

Suddenly, Tai Li had attacked Mei and pinned her to a tree.

"TAI LI! What the heck are you doing!" Tai Li yelled, surprised.

"Back off, girlfriend! I could stand smelly, but when you call him stupid, that's when I really get angry!" Tai Li shouted, glaring at her friend menacingly.

"Okay, I know you love animals, but now you're creeping me out," Mei said, holding up her hands.

"At least I don't call Zuko stupid!"

"Yeah but this is different!"

"How so?" Tai Li asked, folding her arms angrily.

"Because Zuko is my crush and that ox thing… its just an…" Suddenly, Mei realized something and slapped her forehead. "Oh, man… you're IN LOVE with the ox?"

"Yeah, duh," Tai Li said, rolling her eyes. "Who did you think I was talking about?"

"That other guy."

"EEK, no!" Tai Li shouted, then laughed. "Ew, ew, ew! That guy had a ponytail and no skills whatsoever! He was too easy to beat! But the bison…" She grinned. "He was ADORABLE! And such power! If I had a bison like that, I'd love him, I wouldn't use him for travel!"

"Okay, now you're just freaking me out," Mei said. She blinked. "Ugh… we're still lost, though."

"Panic, panic, panic, panic-"

Mei wacked her across the head.

"Thanks. I needed that."

"No problem."

Suddenly, Azula came out of the forest riding her lizard thingy.

"Azula?" Mei said.

"Yeah! Azula's here!" Tai Lin hugged her. "You missed you, Azula! So, did you get to see Zuko?"

"Tai Li-"

"Yes. And I had fun defeating him too." Azula smirked that smirky smirk she always smirks.

"Oooh! Ouch, Mei!" Tai Li giggled. "Let's dance!"

So the three of them started dancing to nothing in particular.

"By the way… how are we supposed to get out of here?" Mei asked.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… just keep dancing! Maybe HE'LL come and save us!"

CLUNK.

"Ow! I wasn't hyperventilating, Mei!"

"I know."

"MEANIE!"

"I'll show you meanie."

"Waaaaaah! Azula! Mei's being mean!"

"I'm only giving you what you deserve."

"If he were here, he'd knock you flat!"

"Who's 'he'?"

"Tai Lin's crush: a smelly, stupid, bison!"

CLUNK.

"That's it! Get over here! I'm gonna smack you silly!"

"I'm not coming!"

"Chicken! Get out of that tree!"

"Guys, we still need to get out of here…"

**That was kind of weird. But I have no life and I just felt like writing this. Please drop a review.**

**Edit: I wrote this story back in middle school, so I thought that Tai Li falling in love with a bison was funny because I didn't know there was such a thing as humans actually having a thing for animals; I thought I made it up. So sorry if it weirded anyone else out a lot. I know it has weirded out me four years later upon rereading it.**


	2. Lizard Thingy Meat

**I decided to write more! Huzzah! By the way, I figured out Tai Li's real name is Tai LIN, but I decided to keep it to how I had it in the first chapter.  
**

There were four.

And now there were three.

"Mmm! You were right, Azula! Lizard-thingies DO taste like possum chicken!" Tai Li managed to say in between bites.

"Good thing, too. I was starving," Mei added, taking a large bite. "Aren't you going to have any?"

"Erm… I'm fine with berries…" Azula was not as ravenous as her two compadres.

"Well, day two is almost up and we're still lost," Azula continued. "It's a good thing I found you or you would have had trouble making a fire."

"But we had no trouble yesterday-"

"Silence." Tai Li blinked and Azula continued. "You would've starved to death, then. Or eaten by platypus bears. Do I always have to save you guys?"

Mei and Tai Li blinked in unison.

"Well, don't worry. I always manage to get us out of the worst of ordeals, don't I?" Azula said, smirking that smirky smirk she always smirks.

"If you say so…" Mei mumbled, throwing her lizard thingy bones into the fire.

"Well… I could climb a tree and look around! With luck, I might see a village!" Tai Li shouted, clapping her hands with undying enthusiasm.

"It's worth a shot…" Mei mumbled.

"Yeah and I might see your precious Zuko's ship!" Tai Li giggled and clambered up the tree.

"Even better." Azula laughed maniacally.

"I bet you practice that in front of a mirror…" Mei growled, upset that Azula would hurt Zuko.

"Who told you? I mean…" Azula grabbed the dead lizard thingy's head. "My, this DOES taste good! Yum, yum…"

"Listen, Azula there's been something I've been meaning to say," Mei said, gathering up her strength. She was finally going to tell Azula to back off and leave Zuko alone! Finally!

"Yeah, so what is it?" Azula stared at her, glaring deep into her heart and Mei lost her last ounce of courage.

"Um… I like lizard thingy meat too." Mei sat back down and bit into the crunchy tail. "Mmm… delicious."

And so they sat there awkwardly until Tai Li came back down.

"I didn't see anything. We followed those stupid kids and their lovely bison-" She swooned- "too far." Tai Li sighed.

"Well, don't worry!" Azula said, standing up. "My father has taken me to enough daddy-daughter camping trips that I know how to survive! Just leave it to me!"

"Man, you're lucky your dad is so nice," Tai Li said, though still sounding cheerful. "When I told my dad I was leaving for the circus, he started doing the cha-cha and the waltz and the tango and the foxtrot and the worm." She shuddered. "It was scary. I hid under the sofa for six hours. And when I finally came out, my little brother jumped on my head and shouted "BE A HORSEY! BE A HORSEY!", and I'm not entirely sure of what a horsey is, but I know I must have spent at least twelve hours under the couch that day…"

Mei and Azula stared at each other and, in silent agreement, decided that if worse came to worse, Tai lie would be the first eaten.

"Well, onward, ho!" Tai Li shoved her fist into the air and marched forward. "Now we've got to live off the land! Let's start with fishing!"

"Why? We just ate," Mei said. "Besides, don't fish have to be gutted?"

"Yeah… but the lizard thingy had to be gutted too," Tai Li replied.

"But it wasn't as gross then… we were hungry and we didn't care."

"Ah, buck up, Mei!" Azula said, slapping her friend in the back. "We need to plan ahead! Catching and gutting fish might take all day!"

"Ugh… I'll catch the fish, but I won't gut them," Mei growled, shivering.

"Speaking of which… how are we going to catch any?"

**Ah, it always seems to end with Azula asking a question. Chapter 3 soon!**


	3. Fight of the Hungry

**Time for chapter 3! Whoopty-dee!**

Azula, Mei and Tai Li had spent the whole rest of the day making fishing poles. So they had no dinner, and by the next day, they were all raring to go to the stream and get some fish… even Mei.

"Wow, these have got to be the worst fishing poles I've ever seen," Mei commented staring at her stick with a piece of reed tied on to the end.

"You just didn't put your back into enough," Azula growled; her own fishing pole was somehow made perfectly.

"Let's go fishing, good fishing pole or not!" Tai Li grinned and raced down to the lake.

"You run ahead, Tai Li," said Mei. "I want to tell Azula something."

"Rodger!" Tai Li saluted and raced off.

"So… what's up?" asked Azula. Mei had to tell her! No more picking on Zuko! He was just a really hot teenager that didn't deserve this…

"Mei?" Azula sighed. "It seems like you've been trying to tell me something, but you keep holding back… so what is it?"

"Uh… urm…" Mei bit her lip. _Come on, Mei! Say something witty! _"…Once, I heard eating bark is a good technique for surviving in the wild…"

Azula blinked. "Yeah, Mei. That's a great idea. IF I WAS A BEAVER-SEAL!"

"I'm just tossing ideas around…"

"You need food. All this being lostness is getting to you." Azula conked her in the head, which Mei angrily rubbed as that was more painful than intended. _Eat tree bark! Are you nuts! …okay, maybe a little nuts. Nuts… I really miss nuts… and fire flakes. Mmm… fire flakes…me and my daddy ALWAYS ate fire flakes… and possum chicken… AH! ONLY THOSE IN POVERTY EAT POSSUM CHICKEN! Must… remember… place in society…okay, what else… pentapus… pentapus is good… with soy sauce and lemon juice and a tiny pinch of pepper…_

"MEI! CUT THAT OUT! I thought this was a river, but I'm fishing in your spit!" Azula yelled, threatening her with an angry fist.

Mei looked down and realized she had been drooling up a storm.

"Sorry, I was thinking about… tree bark." Mei picked up her crude fishing pole and walked to the real river and not the one she made with her slobber.

"Don't worry, Mei! We'll catch you a fish on the double!" Tai Li saluted and dropped her line in the water, calling, "Here, fishy, fishy, fishy…"

After fishing for a few minutes, Azula poked Mei.

"Hey, Mei. Look."

Mei looked up to see a family of cheerful beaver-seals.

"See them?" Azula said, pointing in a sarcastically-happy voice. "They're eating bark. And you know what? They're not people! Wow! Isn't that amazing?"

"Shut up, Azula."

"You can't tell me that! I'm a princess!" Azula laughed the laugh she practiced so long and hard. "And as princess, I command you to sacrifice your socks to me to cloth my feet!"

"FINE! Have my socks! I don't care!" Mei threw her socks at Azula, who pouted a she waited for a fish.

"Guys, I caught one!" Tai Li screeched. "Go me! Go me! It's my birthday! Not really!"

"Great, we can split it up three-"

Tai Li shoved it down her own throat whole and rubbed her stomach.

"…ways." Mei blinked and screamed, "WHY! WHY DID YOU DOOO THAT!"

"I was hungry." Mei stared at Tai Li with the same expression. "What? Haven't you ever had raw fish?"

"You ate the bones… and the brain… and the internal organs…" Mei shuddered. "The only good to come out of this is that I'm not hungry anymore… ugh."

"Hey, I caught one too!" Azula ate hers whole and Mei melted. She was not so used to living in the outdoor world or eating anything that hadn't been peeled or cooked… even though Chinese people eat stuff raw occasionally. I think. I don't know.

"I'm still hungry, though," Azula said, looking around. "Maybe we could kill an armadillo-squirrel or whatever lives out here."

"Is there any lizard thingy meat left?" Tai Li asked.

"No, but there's the organs."

"Sounds good."

"You guys scare me…!" Mei said, covering her head as if to shield herself from her hunger-stricken friends.

"Eat me, Mei! Come on, take off one of my legs or a rib!" Tai Li said.

Mei looked up in shock. "Excuse me! Tai Li, are you-?"

Suddenly, Mei realized Tai Li looked like a possum chicken, roasted and ready.

"I'm so perfectly roasted… just take a bite! I'm delicious, Mei!" Possum Chicken Tai Li took out a fork and knife.

"I taste good too!" Azula said. Mei whipped around; Azula looked like a flying boar. "I'm so nice and juicy… take off my leg and eat the hoof and all! What's a little fat when you can eat me?"

"Eat us, Mei, eat us… Eat us, Mei, eat us…!" the food friends seemed to chant.

Mei stared, then grinned. "If you insist…!"

"OWWWWWWWWW!" Azula yelled. She stared at Mei, who, try as she might, could not bite through her armor. "What's wrong with you!

"You're not a flying boar," Mei commented.

"Duh, I'm not! Stop trying to eat Tai Li's shoe!" Azula kicked Mei in the head.

"But you just told me to eat you…" Mei said, her eyes as big as pie pans.

"No we didn't! Oh, I know what you want." Azula went up to a tree, ripped off a branch and stuffed it in Mei's mouth. "There! There's your bark! Chew and swallow!"

Mei spit it back at her in little splintery shards. "Don't you make me eat bark!"

"Guys… calm down… I know if he were here-"

"No one cares about your crush, Tai Li!" Azula and Mei said in unison.

_No one cares about your crush, Tai Li… about your crush… your crush… crush…_

"You two are going down!" Tai Li rolled up her sleeves and rushed at them.

The sun was setting on day three…

**Sorry about not updating… there was this huge project due in science class that was worth 40 of our grade (at the end of the year, too!) … so generally, that needed to be completed. Chapter 4 soon!**


	4. Finding Nemo, I mean Azula

**Sorry it's been so long. Been busy with school and stuff. And finishing my summer.**

* * *

Mei woke up with a start. It was the middle of the night or early morning. She couldn't remember anything from before; just that she had been fighting with Azula and Tai Li.

"Guys…?" Mei called out, standing up. "Hello?"

Suddenly, something jumped down from the tree and strangled Mei in a hug.

"Tai Li? That's you, isn't it?"

"Mei! Oh thank goodness you're alright!" Tai Li grinned. She had, apparently, forgiven Mei for not caring about her crush and trying to eat her shoe before.

"What happened?" Mei asked, rubbing her scalp where it strangely hurt.

"Well, we were all fighting. Then Azula grabbed a lizard thingy bone and hit you over the head with it, and you were knocked unconscious." _That explains a lot_. "Then Azula went on a rampage hitting everything in her path, so I climbed up a tree and hid up there for seven hours, which was a lot like hiding under the couch that one time." _That's our Tai Li. _"Azula was looking for me, but then a platypus bear came and carried her off… somewhere." Tai Li burst into tears and hugged Mei again. "Oh, this is terrible, Mei! Azula is gone and maybe eaten by a platypus bear!"

Mei, finding she was still hungry by the by, could not help but feel a little pleased that her ex-best friend's arms, legs, head, and innerds were divvied up between some adorable little platypus bear cubs.

"What are you smiling about, Mei?"

"Eh? Oh, nothing." Mei resumed her normal bored composure. "Let's go find Azula. She's the only who knows anything about surviving out here."

"Rodger!" Tai Li saluted and followed Mei.

Mei's stomach made a loud gurgling noise.

"I'm hungry."

"Me, too," Tai Li replied, sighing. "I know! Let's find a berry bush!"

Mei sighed. "Yeah, but without Azula we won't know which berries are poisonous."

"Ah, crumbs."

Mei jumped on her. "SHUT UP! You're making me hungry!"

"But I just said-"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Okay, okay…" Tai Li gave Mei a good twenty feet between them as they continued onward through the forest.

After about an hour of walking, it was day break. Mei wasn't tired because she had been sleeping when she was K.O.'d. However, Tai Li looked like she was going to keel over with exhaustion.

"… are you okay, Tai Li?"

"Tired."

"I can tell. Only you would talk in such short sentences when you are. Otherwise, they have no ends…" Mei stared at her friend, who had fallen asleep standing up. "Tai Li?"

"YES, FATHER!"

Mei blinked. "… Whatever. We can stop if you want."

"But… I wanna picnic on the mountain…" Tai Li pointed off in the distance. There was no mountain. Mei had an idea.

"No. We picnic here." She grinned as she added, "Or do you want me to dance again?"

Tai Li screamed so shrilly that only a dog could hear it. "No, Daddy, no! We'll picnic here! Okay!"

Tai Li immediately fell over in a deep slumber.

"Odd." Mei decided that she wouldn't travel far from Tai Li and try and test her luck with the berry bushes. If all went well, she would have chosen something edible. _I must be really hungry or really stupid. Oh well. Being stupid isn't so bad. Tai Li's always happy._

So she grabbed some pretty red berries that looked like clay, some blue berries she found in the dirt, a few nuts that looked appetizing (fortunately, she had enough energy to run away from a few rabid squirrels), and some fuzzy black berries that smelled like rain water and grandma feet. Now for the taste testing.

"…"

_Perhaps I should make Tai Li do this._

_No, I'm hungry._

_I know! I'll test it on some forest critter._

But as soon as she grabbed a baby chipmunk-locust out of a tree, it stared at her in just that way that cute, adorable way that she almost thought about letting it go.

Almost.

But by that point in hunger, all sanity was lost, and her stomach overshadowed her brain. Instead of all the gruesome details, I would just like to say that that baby chipmunk-locust is no longer with us today. I apologize to the vegetarians about to hit me with baseball bats and sledge hammers.

She was still quite hungry and after searching for more rodent or bug or something with meat nest's she figured all she could do was test-taste the berries.

She swallowed the red one first. A little bitter, but not bad. Kind of like an under ripe raspcherry. Then she tried the blue berries. _Mmm! Delicious! They taste like noodles! Which is totally not what berries are supposed to taste like, but who cares? _The nuts tasted like nuts (unsalted, how sad), and she immediately spit out the black fuzzy berries, as they tasted the same as how they smelled.

So she snacked on noodle berries and unsalted nuts to find that Tai Li was still curled up under the tree. Mei threw a grandma feet berry at her.

"Hey, Tai Li. Wake up. We're gonna go look for Azula."

"ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAR!"

Tai Li shot up like a rocket.

"Wow, Mei, you really ARE hungry!" Tai Li said her eyes as wide as she was tall.

"That wasn't my stomach, you idiot." Mei glanced around. "I bet it was a platypus bear. We must be close to Azula."

"Mei, I'm scared," said Tai Li, her eyes wide with fear.

"Buck up."

"I can't! What if we get eaten?" Tai Li screamed with realization. "What if Azula was eaten?"

"Too bad for her." Mei couldn't help but smile with hopefulness. Than Zuko would (in her own little world) be the next Fire Lord and she would be the Fire Lord…ess. Or so she hoped with every ounce of her love-struck heart.

They stumbled upon a cave suddenly. Another roar emitted from it.

"The bear is inside. Be on your guard," said Mei. She got her arrows ready. Tai Li couldn't really do much, so she grabbed a rock the size of a beach ball. It was too heavy and she dropped it on her foot.

"OW!" she screamed.

"YOU IDIOT!" Mei screamed back. "Now the bear's gonna eat US!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Tai Li cried, tears streaming down her face.

Azula walked out of the cave.

"Azula! You're okay!" Tai Li hugged Azula until her face turned purple.

"Aw…" Mei's heart sunk. Then she added, "What happened to the bear?"

"I ate it."

"No way!" Mei shouted. She was shocked. How could it not kill her?

"Yeah, no way!" Tai Li reiterated. "Without saving any for us?"

"There's some," Azula answered. "But I ate most of it." She picked her teeth clean with a piece of a bone. Mei noticed that she was still as skinny as a pencil.

"Want some, Mei?" Tai Li asked, holding up a piece of meat.

"You guys make me nauseous."

"Cool." Azula yawned. "But we still have to get out of here. Let's build a fire."

And that they did.

**The adventure continues! Will Mei ever get married to Zuko? Will Tai Li and Azula stop making her feel nauseous? And will they ever find their way home? Find out in the next chapter!  
**

**Once again, sorry for not updating in a long time. I can't believe the last updation was in May!**


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